


Dust to call you home

by redsnake05



Category: Glitch (Video Game)
Genre: Bittersweet, F/F, Separations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-20
Updated: 2013-10-20
Packaged: 2017-12-29 22:32:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1010899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redsnake05/pseuds/redsnake05
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Breccia is known to every stray Glitchen as the Juju Grandma, but this nickname hides a long quest. It might be that she is finally ready to search for Esquibeth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dust to call you home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elf (Elfwreck)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elfwreck/gifts).



> Breccia is a name I made up for Juju Grandma. It is a word to refer to certain kinds of fragmented rock. I have given the Ancestral Lands their own name, the Gard, which is also the name for the people who live there (better known to Glitchen as the Juju Bandits).

"So, you again," said Breccia, as the Glitch walked up and stood in front of her. She couldn't remember their names, these Glitchen. Smelly would have to suffice as a name, as it had done for a long time. "You already completed the task and found the paperweight. What do you want now?"

"I wanted to talk," said Smelly.

"You can't find Glitchen enough to talk to? You have to come out here, to the Gard, and bother us?"

Smelly said nothing. Breccia smoothed out a piece of paper and chose the colour she wanted. Russet, made from ochre ores on Redhorn Road somewhere. She fixed the outline she wanted in her head: a scene from the swamps today. She could see the Jellisac growths in the cliff face, just down from the shrine. It would be perfect. She smoothed the paper again.

"Go away," she said. "You're interrupting my art."

"I didn't know Bandits did art," said Smelly.

"You don't know anything," retorted Breccia. These Glitchen, they didn't understand anything, particularly not the Gard. They'd left the red-brown savannah for the other lands, spreading out into the imagined spaces of the world. They'd forgotten; they had left the Gard behind. Breccia had known some who remembered, but she pushed the memory away. She would gain nothing from reminiscences, especially not about Glitches.

"It's true I don't know much," said Smelly. "I don't know your name, for example."

"Doesn't worry me. I don't know yours, but Smelly does just as well. You reek of nostalgia for something you don't even remember. You'll leave soon."

Breccia concentrated on her paper, deliberately not looking up as Smelly lingered. She wondered what Smelly saw here, though: a crazy old lady surrounded by mounds of paper, most likely. She might not see the shape Breccia was building, each fold deliberate, each ghostly silhouette carefully surrounded with red. Breccia didn't care. She had Jellisacs to perfect.

Smelly's fidgeting got more obvious as the nostalgia took hold. It seemed stronger now than on Glitchen in the past, some of whom had been able to stay for days in the red lands. Breccia blamed the wild Imagination that had seen the world grow faster than the Glitchen could absorb, but she wasn't going to share that with some random Smelly who had dropped in. She drew in the cliff face, shading to get the depth she wanted, then darkening the hollows for the Jellisacs. Satisfied, her paper perfectly shaded in russet, she held it at arm's length and let the excess blow away, back into the sands.

As Smelly was Overwhelmed, Breccia ignored the noise of her teleportation. She fixed the image of one Glitch in her head and reached for the eraser. It was time to put Esquibeth onto the paper.

>>>>

Breccia waited under the Firefly Swarm. She'd been coming down here so often that the damp didn't bother her any longer, though she could remember how it had seemed so chilly and foreign at first, after the sunlight of the Gard. Esquibeth leaped up the wooden walk with a smile and greeted her with a kiss. Breccia pulled her closer and kissed her again, more intently, letting her fingers slide into Esquibeth's hair. Pulling back, Esquibeth laughed a little breathlessly.

"I asked you to meet outside so we wouldn't get distracted by kissing," she said. "There are things I need to do."

"More important than kissing?" asked Breccia. "I don't believe that."

"Maybe we can squeeze some in later," Esquibeth replied. "Perhaps I can come home with you? I need some paper." She smiled again as she said it, and Breccia knew that collecting paper was the smallest part of her desire to come to Gard. She had a momentary vision of Esquibeth as she'd seen her last time they'd, stretched out on Breccia's bed, in her tent with the door open to let in the breeze. They'd travelled far that day, all the way out to near the edge of the massif that bounded the savannah. Breccia had tumbled down onto the bed with her, the wind their only companion through the night.

"Of course you can," Breccia said. Like she was going to miss out on an opportunity like that. Esquibeth smiled and kissed her once more. Breccia thought she could feel the sun in Esquibeth's lips and sighed as she drew back.

"Come on," said Esquibeth. "Let's collect some jellisacs."

>>>>

Breccia had been building her circular tower of paper for a long time. It had started with two sheets and a stick of cinnabar ore. It was something to do one afternoon in the silence of the Gard. It had been just long enough that she wasn't angry with Esquibeth any more. Just long enough for her to feel how lonely she was.

It now stood taller than she did, curving fat like a Swamp House, out of place on the open savannah. Breccia didn't care. She held up her latest paper and considered the gap in the upper wall.

A 'pop' behind her made her jump and she nearly dropped the paper.

"Sorry," said a voice, and Breccia turned to see Smelly standing there.

"Again?" she asked. "Can't you leave an old lady in peace? Don't you have cherries to pick or chickens to squeeze or something?"

"I wanted to talk to you again," Smelly said. "You were right, about me not knowing anything. I don't know if you call yourselves Juju Bandits or if that's just a rude word we give you. I don't know why you love paper, or why you do art."

Breccia considered her. Some of that was probably true. Glitchen and the Gard had parted ways a long time ago. Even when she'd known Esquibeth, their love was unusual enough to raise eyebrows on both sides, even though nothing had been said. If she was being honest, it was sheer luck that had made her and Esquibeth even look twice at one another and move past the years of diverging history. If Esquibeth hadn't saved her from being Rookfood, she didn't know if they would ever have been friends, much less lovers.

Stepping closer, Smelly looked at the paper in all the shades of red-orange that the savannah could make, and in each one a ghostly white figure. "I know her, though," she said. "It's Esquibeth of Inari, isn't it?" 

"How do you know of her?" Breccia demanded. Her nerves had tightened suddenly and she was gripping the paper close. She hadn't heard Esquibeth's name spoken by someone else for many long years.

"The Giants show us," said Smelly. "They take us into their imagination and we follow her as she finds the music to awaken Grendaline and call her back." She paused, maybe wondering what else to say. "She's a hero," she said. "Esquibeth of Inari saved Imagination for all of us. If it wasn't for her, we wouldn't be here."

Breccia snorted. "A half story," she said. "A hero. A martyr. Five minutes with some damn musical tones, and that's all her life."

"You knew her well," said Smelly.

"Better than these Giants show you," said Breccia. She took a deep breath and deliberately released her clench on the paper, letting it flatten out. The Giants were always the same. All Imagination and no Sense. 

"Will you tell me?" asked Smelly. "I want to know the real story. I want to feel the inside of this world, not just delight in the outside."

"What do you need me for?" asked Breccia. "You go forth and find a story of your own. Then maybe you can come back here and ask me. Maybe."

>>>>

Breccia stood next to Esquibeth on the edge of the savannah. The evening sun cast long shadows over the grass and a small fire was burning in front of their tent.

"I can feel the gap in the Imagination," said Esquibeth. Breccia was silent. She'd heard this before. "I need to try to bridge that gap."

The silence stretched out between them. Esquibeth reached for Breccia's hand and turned to look at her. Breccia avoided her gaze.

"You know why I'm doing this," she said, her voice full of pleading. "Please. Don't cut me out, not tonight."

"You've already made up your mind to go," said Breccia. "You don't need my permission."

"No, but I would like your blessing."

Breccia snorted quietly. "My blessing, for this foolhardy scheme into the mind of the Giants?"

"Foolhardy it might be, but someone must make the attempt."

"Someone else might make it."

"You know we can't rely on others. If many make the attempt, one of us might succeed. If all of us wait for someone else, we will all surely fail."

"Your mind is made up," said Breccia.

"I wish I didn't have to go."

"I can't give you my blessing," said Breccia, looking at her at last. "That's not the way of the Gard. I can only give you the dust of the land, that your feet might remember the way back, and the width of the sky, that your mind might be open to success, and my belief in the strength of your mind and your purpose, for only time and challenges will test those."

"I will remember the way back," promised Esquibeth. "However far I wander, the dust shall call me home."

Breccia smiled sadly. She knew that was a promise that might not be kept, but she didn't say anything more. 

The sun sank, leaving only the light of the fire. They turned away from the savannah as it turned dark. Esquibeth pulled Breccia towards the tent. Breccia went willingly; she was done with words.

They left the door of the tent open so the flicker of firelight hit their bed and its quilted coverings. They slipped out of their clothes quickly and Esquibeth pulled Breccia down onto the bed. They kissed slowly, hands skimming over one another's skin. Breccia could taste the savanna on Esquibeth's lips and pushed her back on the quilt, determined to imprint that dust onto every part of Esquibeth's skin. She had no faith in Imagination to bring Esquibeth back to her, but she had every hope in the dust of the Gard.

>>>>

The last paper settled into place, overlapping perfectly with the others to form a seamless pod of a building. Breccia stood back and looked. It was exactly right. At her feet was a bundle of red-brown cotton; her old quilt. She'd kept it safe, folded gently in on itself with the dust of a much older Gard trapped inside it. Now the tower was ready, and she was ready too.

The pop of teleportation behind her didn't surprise her this time. She'd known Smelly would be back. The ways of the Giants weren't that inscrutable. 

"You're back, then, Smelly," she said.

"I am," she said. "I have a story for you."

"I'm here too," said another voice. Breccia turned, surprised at last. 

"Carnelian," she said. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to hear the story," he said.

"I already told mine to Carnelian, but I can tell you again, if you want," Smelly offered.

She looked at them, standing close enough to touch, and wondered how things were going to work out for them. Perhaps Glitchen hadn't changed so much, or perhaps the Gard was changing too. "No," she said, after considering them for long enough. "Carnelian should hear it and know it and repeat it, not me." 

"I'm leaving," she continued. "I'm going to find Esquibeth."

"I know," said Carnelian. "I've always known."

"She went on her Pilgrimage to save Imagination," said Smelly. "It's only right that someone loves her enough to save her."

Breccia beckoned them both over to the small fire that burned in front of her shabby old tent. "Come," she said, "let's drink a cup of mallow and allspice tea, and I will tell you of Esquibeth, so you might remember her too, while I'm gone. Before I start, perhaps you'd better tell me your real name, not-Smelly."

Sitting next to the fire, Breccia swirled the water in the pot and thought about her quest. The Gard have always been beings of dust: not rock, not water, not wood, not air. Yet here she was, building a house for Imagination, and all to see Esquibeth again. 

Breccia would see her soon.


End file.
